21St Century Consort

The Smithsonian American Art Museum Presents 21st CENTURY CONSORT November 5, 2011 Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium, Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum presents presents 21st Century Consort Pre-Concert Discussion Christopher Kendall with David Froom and Jo Ann Gillula Christopher Kendall, Artistic Director Boyd Sarratt, Manager Program Elisabeth Adkins, Violin “The Great American…” Paul Cigan, Clarinet Lisa Emenheiser, Piano Songs America Loves to Sing John Harbison Abigail Evans, Viola Solo: Amazing Grace Aaron Goldman, Flute Canon: Careless Love Sue Heineman, Bassoon Solo: Will the Circle be Unbroken? Jane Stewart, Violin Canon: Aura Lee Nick Stovall, Oboe Solo: What a Friend We Have in Jesus Canon: St. Louis Blues Olivia Vote, Mezzo-Soprano Solo: Poor Butterfly Rachel Young, Cello Canon: We Shall Overcome Solo: Ain’t Goin’ to Study War No More Mark Huffman, Recording Engineer Canon: Anniversary Song Kevin McGee, Stage Manager Ms. Adkins, Mr. Cigan, Ms. Emenheiser, Mr. Goldman, Ms. Young Saturday, November 5, 2011 Emerson Songs David Froom Pre-Concert Discussion 4:00 p.m. Cloud upon cloud The Snow-Storm Concert 5:00 p.m. I cannot find Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium Ms. Adkins, Mr. Cigan, Ms. Emenheiser, Ms. Evans, Mr. Goldman, Ms. Heineman, Smithsonian American Art Museum Mr. Kendall, Mr. Stovall, Ms. Vote, Ms. Young ❖ ❖ ❖ INTERMISSION The 21st Century Consort’s 2011–2012 Season is sponsored by The Smithsonian American Art Museum and funded in part by generous grants from the Cafritz Foundation and the Copland Foundation, and contributions from the Board and Friends of the 21st Century Consort. A Whitman Sampler Or Like a….an Engine Joan Tower Program Notes and Texts Love Song of a Waterfall Slim Whitman Artistic Director’s Note: My Western Home arr. William Brehm The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s current, extraordinary exhi- Wild Wild West Richard Markowitz, arr. David Froom bition, “The Great American Hall of Wonders,” has been the inspiration This Land is Your Land arr. William Brehm for the Consort’s fall concerts. If you haven’t had a chance already, we Ms. Emenheiser, Ms. Vote urge you to visit it. In this evening’s program, we’ve populated the first half with works that evoke the period, 1) in what Jon Harbison calls his Clocks Miguel Del Aguila “distant, quaint vision,” but one very much alive in our imagination Ms. Adkins, Ms. Emenheiser, Ms. Evans, Ms. Stewart, Ms. Young and a living force in our work and world, and 2) David Froom’s beauti- ful setting of one of the American poets whose work captures the zeit- ❖ ❖ ❖ geist of the exhibition’s era. In designing the program’s second half, we embarked on a quest to find a collection of works that parallels the six The audience is invited to join the artists in the lobby for an characteristic items favored by the artists and inventors in the exhibi- informal post-concert reception, sponsored by the tion (representing nature: the giant redwood, Niagara Falls and the buf- Board and Friends of the 21st Century Consort. falo; representing industrialization: the railroad, clock and gun). This turned out to be harder than anticipated. Nevertheless I look forward to experiencing the crazy-quilt of things that have emerged. Song settings particular to the program by the other iconic poet of the period, The Consort wishes to dedicate this concert to a wonderful Whitman, were hard to come by, but we dedicate this sampler never- friend and colleague of three decades, Curt Wittig. Our recording theless to a Whitman of a different stripe (Slim, no relation to Walt) engineer through innumerable projects, thoroughly an artist in whose vivid and inimitable performance could only be rendered here his own right, Curt passed away this past summer, leaving behind in its original form. Other pieces, including Bill Brehm’s marvelous him a vast legacy of recordings and documented performance. arrangements (slightly and slyly altered to evoke the exhibition and Perhaps his magnum opus, among the work he did with so many Walt himself), at least touch the six items of nature and the machine, kinds of music and performers, is the archive of 21st Century bracketed by Joan Tower’s powerful evocation of “engine” (which we Consort concerts of over 35 years. Still being brought up to date are happy to consider specifically a railroad steam engine) and Miguel on the Consort website, his magical work can be found at Del Aguila’s ingenious evocation of clocks. www.21stcenturyconsort.com/index.php/archive. We will miss – Christopher Kendall Curt more than we can say, but will be forever grateful for his friendship and great work. Songs America Loves to Sing John Harbison Since receiving the 1986 Pulitzer Prize, John Harbison has become a dis- tinguished figure in American composition. The recipient of numerous awards and honors (including the prestigious MacArthur Foundation’s “genius” award), Harbison has composed music for most of America’s premiere musical institutions, including the Metropolitan Opera (The Great Gatsby, 1999), the Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Harbison grew up in a musical family. His father, a professor of Canon: Aura Lee history at Princeton, was also formally trained in composition and The piano ostinato is an abstract wall- wrote music in both serious and pop styles. Already as a child John ab- paper of the tune which is presented sorbed a wide repertory of musical styles, and he began improvising at at various speeds by the others. In the the piano before he could even read music. He studied both violin and ‘50s a famous entertainer produced a piano, composed actively, and pursued jazz obsessively. By the time he hit record of a song that very much was fifteen he had won a national competition with a work for trumpet resembles “Aura Lee.” and piano. Mr. Harbison has been composer-in-residence with the Pittsburgh Solo: What a Friend We Have in Jesus Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the American Academy in We are at the heart of the cycle, two Rome, and numerous festivals, including Tanglewood, Marlboro, and numbers touching upon the gospel Aspen. He received degrees from Harvard and Princeton before joining and blues traditions. Here the piano the faculty of MIT. He is Acting Artistic Director of Emmanuel Music offers increasingly fervent glosses on (Boston), co-Artistic Director of the Token Creek Chamber Music the tune. The accompanists are not Festival, and President of the Copland Fund. drawn in, but cast a reverent shadow. Regarding Songs America Loves to Sing, the composer writes: Canon: St. Louis Blues The most elaborate of the canons, actually a double inversion canon It is a distant, quaint vision: the family around the piano singing famil- over a free bass, with certain elements treated as “thickened lines” (a iar songs, a Currier and Ives print, an album of sepia photographs. But fine descriptive jazz theory term). I remember it well (or did I imagine it?). The album which our family sometimes used may have been called Songs America Loves to Sing. The Solo: Poor Butterfly present collection of solos and canons on some of these still familiar The pristine melody is first presented as a cadenza, filtering though melodies is dedicated to my sister Meg (of five singers, now only two only if the listener remembers it well. Then, as a reminder, it is played left). simply by the accompanists, while the soloist continues an embroidery derived from the tune. Solo: Amazing Grace In 1972 I made a virtuoso set of variations for solo oboe on this tune. Canon: We Shall Overcome This simpler version is an exploration of the overtones of the primary We enter a political sequence here, two songs that never lose currency. chord. The accompanying strings offer a foretaste of the canonic prin- The early music vocabulary for “We Shall Overcome” says that the goals ciple, framing the soloist with slower versions of “Amazing Grace.” it furthered have not been achieved. The contentious diminution canons suggest that social struggles and disjunction continue, in- Canon: Careless Love evitably. The melody is presented as a ghostly backdrop in the accompanying piano. A series of pensive octave canons serve to introduce the ensem- Solo: Ain’t Goin’ to Study War No More ble, in pairs, to the listener. I know no sturdier expression of the hope for peace than this spiritual. In the setting an undercurrent of unease is present in the fanfares heard Solo: Will the Circle be Unbroken? during the second stanza. As the accompanists join the soloist in a col- The song has a visionary presence, and suggests very little harmonic lective jam session, the conflicts recede. (A parallel version of the piece change, a fact emphasized by the obsessive piano signal. The solo be- was my contribution the Albany Symphony Spiritual Project.) gins rhapsodically, then is pulled into the pulse. Canon: Anniversary Song Regarding his piece, the composer has provided the following com- In a photograph of her fifth birthday party my sister Helen sits in front mentary: of her cake, surrounded by her friends, in a perfect party dress, weeping Emerson Songs consists of three songs using poetry of Ralph Waldo inconsolably. From that image of her indelibly melancholic tempera- Emerson. The work lasts about 15 minutes. The first and last songs are ment comes the initial canon; birthdays can be daunting. At the end a settings of poetic fragments from the manuscript poems of 1840-49. more hopeful version of this tune, similar to a (perhaps) still copy- The text of the central song is one of Emerson’s most famous poems, righted melody, takes over.

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